Dye in engine oil.

Pennzoil motor oil
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shDK

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Hi all.

Yesterday I made an oilchange about on a friends car, he brought the oil himself. The oil was Castrol magnatec professional. And apparently, that oil is dyed green. That made me wonder. Is there any known problems with dye in engineoil. Is there any known problems with oil passages or filters clogging, or any other problems? I know ATF it dyed red. But I have never seen dyed Engineoil.

Thanks all

Søren
 
Dyes are often effective in very tiny quantities. I have never heard of a dye in a lubricant or fuel causing a problem. It wouldn't surprise me if some ordinary oils had dyes in them to make them appear more "golden" and appealing instead of transparent.
 
I've never heard of dyes causing any issues in engines.

But just curious, what substance is the dye made of? Would it show up on a typical UOA/VOA?
 
Dye should have zero effect on performance and has no potential to clog filters or passages. Most dye is extremely effective at treat rates as low as 0.01% for noticeable but transparent color to 0.05% for very dark color like red gear oils.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I've never heard of dyes causing any issues in engines.

But just curious, what substance is the dye made of? Would it show up on a typical UOA/VOA?


No, most of them are carbon based I believe. I could be wrong on that, but I seem to recall that being the case. Even if there is some other scannable element in there the treat rates are so low that I doubt you could pick it up with any real accuracy. However, I'm not a dye expert, just a dye user, so maybe someone else can correct me if I am mistaken.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I've never heard of dyes causing any issues in engines.

But just curious, what substance is the dye made of? Would it show up on a typical UOA/VOA?



If you are 100% sure... Put some heating oil (dyed red...at least here in EU) into modern diesel powered car and report what will happen with its piezzo injectors
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Kira
Want to see dye? Look at avgas. Aviation gas is color coded. I have wondered if the dye effects fuel jets and injectors.

Some Gasoline companies here dye their Gas blue, don't know why
 
Originally Posted By: FordCapriDriver
Originally Posted By: Kira
Want to see dye? Look at avgas. Aviation gas is color coded. I have wondered if the dye effects fuel jets and injectors.

Some Gasoline companies here dye their Gas blue, don't know why


It depends on its RON/amount of lead (octane Number) Blue is ron 100 I think... Brown is... I dont know how much RON (google avgas)
 
Originally Posted By: Kamele0N
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I've never heard of dyes causing any issues in engines.

But just curious, what substance is the dye made of? Would it show up on a typical UOA/VOA?



If you are 100% sure... Put some heating oil (dyed red...at least here in EU) into modern diesel powered car and report what will happen with its piezzo injectors
smile.gif



But that particular oil is dyed for the purpose of leaving a trace of dye in the fuel tank hoses and so on. So an inspector can see you used illegal high sulphur fuel.
 
Dye won't cause any issues in the quantities that it is typically used for. It's not uncommon to dump UV dye into oil to help determine the source of leaks. If anything would cause issues I imagine this would but I've never seen issues with engines running their entire life filled with UV dyed oil.

It also won't matter in fuels. Off-road diesel is dyed red to show that it hasn't been taxed for on-road use. Engines that are run in test cells for engineering purposes will use this fuel since it's cheaper. Also, modern tractors and farm equipment run dyed fuel with no ill effects.
 
Originally Posted By: shDK
Hi all.

Yesterday I made an oilchange about on a friends car, he brought the oil himself. The oil was Castrol magnatec professional. And apparently, that oil is dyed green. That made me wonder. Is there any known problems with dye in engineoil. Is there any known problems with oil passages or filters clogging, or any other problems? I know ATF it dyed red. But I have never seen dyed Engineoil.

Thanks all

Søren


you should look at that oil with a blacklight... it's similar to the UV dye used to find leaks in AC systems. that's what it's there for, to identify what is leaking.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I've never heard of dyes causing any issues in engines.

But just curious, what substance is the dye made of? Would it show up on a typical UOA/VOA?



Spent a little time googling, and it appears that the dyes suitable for coloring fuels and hydrocarbon lubricants are "solvent dyes," many of which are very similar in structure to hydrocarbons to start with, so I doubt they'd show up. Elementally, there might be additional chromium (red), copper (blue), or other metal atoms, but they're literally one or two atoms per very large molecule consisting mostly of H and C. The percentages are very low.
 
Originally Posted By: shDK
Originally Posted By: Kamele0N
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I've never heard of dyes causing any issues in engines.

But just curious, what substance is the dye made of? Would it show up on a typical UOA/VOA?



If you are 100% sure... Put some heating oil (dyed red...at least here in EU) into modern diesel powered car and report what will happen with its piezzo injectors
smile.gif



But that particular oil is dyed for the purpose of leaving a trace of dye in the fuel tank hoses and so on. So an inspector can see you used illegal high sulphur fuel.


Taxes taxes
smile.gif
plus some people like to gamble
smile.gif
It goes well with old diesel cars like vw G4 1.9 TDI..G2... MB 190D...without piezzo injectors. But there are not many of them on roads anymore...
 
Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
I think German oils are historically green...


smile.gif
yes if you are listening group green day 24/7/365
 
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